She feigned sleep and kept on feigning it even when she heard the door open, close and lock. It wasn’t easy to keep the ruse up when she felt Søren’s mouth on her shoulder.

“Did you kiss Kingsley good-night?” she asked, trying not to smile.

“An entire castle full of people who’ve signed confidentiality agreements? Of course I did.”

She giggled and squirmed deeper under the covers. Søren’s kisses followed.

“He’s happy,” she said. “I’ve never seen Kingsley so happy as I have the past two years.”

“He has Juliette, Nico, Céleste—”

“You,” Nora said. “He has you. And even better, he has you to himself when I’m in France with Nico.”

“I promise, by the time you come home from Nico, he’s more than happy to give me back.”

“And I’m more than happy to take you back.” She rolled over and smiled up at him. “What about you? Are you happy?”

He nodded slowly. “Happier than I’ve ever been in my life. Getting older has its advantages. The past feels like ancient history now, gathering dust on the bookshelf. The ghosts have finally moved on to the other side.”

“And you’re turning into a silver fox,” she said, running her fingers through his hair, the blond and the gray. “Another advantage of getting older.”

He smiled and took her hand in his, kissed it. “Perspective. That’s the greatest advantage. I can look back and see my life from far off and at a great height. And looking back on that year in particular I see that I owe you something. A long overdue apology. And your prize, of course.”

“Prize?” She sat up in bed and batted her eyelashes at him. “I’d almost forgotten my prize.”

“Close your eyes and hold out your hands.”

She reluctantly obeyed. “The last time I played this game with Griffin,” she said, “I did not get the prize I wanted.”

“You’ll want this prize,” Søren said. He pressed something into her palms, something thin and smooth. “Open your eyes.”

She opened them as ordered and saw that she held a riding crop in her hands. Thin black polished wood with a white carved bone handle.

“Is this—?”

“It’s the same handle,” Søren said. “We had to replace the actual crop, however.”

Nora looked at it in awe. It wasn’t quite the same as the one Kingsley had given her all those years ago, the one Søren had broken into three pieces. But it was close enough it gave her chills to look at it.

“Where did you get it?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Juliette helped with the restoration. She knows where Kingsley gets all his toys.”

“You know I have dozens of riding crops.”

“You should have dozens plus one,” he said. “It was wrong of me to break it, and I should have replaced it years ago.”

“Is this why you wanted to know about that year?” she asked, running her hand along the wood shaft to the leather triangle tip. A wooden riding crop could inflict the kind of pain a rattan cane could. It could even split the skin. A vicious devilish little weapon—she couldn’t wait to use it on someone.

“Recent events have brought that year back to mind.”

“What recent events? Me and Nico?”

“Yes,” he said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Kingsley warned me when you were sixteen years old that you weren’t the submissive that I thought I wanted you to be. I ignored his warnings, smug in my certainty that you would always obey me no matter what you were in your heart.”

“I did promise I would obey you forever. I tried for a long time, as long as I could.”

“And I promised you everything. Part of that everything should have been letting you be who you are and not trying to force you to be who I wanted. And now that you and Nico are together, and you and I have never been happier, I realize how foolish I was to be afraid.”

It was true. They had never been happier together or during their four months a year apart. Søren had her and Kingsley and she had Søren and Nico. They both were living the life God had created them for and that, she’d found, was the key to happiness.

“I would have been afraid, too. If you’d come home from Rome and told me you’d decided you were a submissive now and not a Dominant anymore, I don’t think I would have taken it any better than you took my news.” She laughed at the very thought. “You’re two people to me—Father Marcus Stearns and Søren—and I love both of you. I’m Eleanor and Nora. I was angry at you for so long because I loved both of you, and you weren’t willing to love both of me.”

“I tried to protect you, and I made it worse.”

“Worse? No. Harder? Yes, but not worse. I might never have started writing novels if I hadn’t left you. And if I hadn’t started writing, I would never have met Zach. And...you know.” She grinned. He tapped her under the chin in that fatherly way he had with her.

“All things work together for the good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose,” Søren said.

“I think I heard that somewhere,” she said.

“You should know that as much as I love my Eleanor, my Little One, I do love Mistress Nora, too. It took me longer to fall in love with her, but now I love her as deeply as I love my Eleanor.”